Filming continues...

So our second and final day of filming was today... Sunday 6th November. We heard from weather warnings that it would be torrential rain... AGAIN. We were really not looking forward to this, but we couldn't postpone our video shoot again because time is crucial and we were really running out of it! We had to do our video shoot regardless, rain or shine. So we all got to the woods at about 11am, and the filming started about 11.30am after we set up our equipment. Luckily there were no signs of rain so our filming went really well. We had to re-shoot some of our scenes again, as the quality from Tuesday wasn't good enough, or they just didn't work well. This time, the whole cast was present. This way we shot every single thing we needed to and finished our shooting. We stuck to our shooting schedule as planned, and everything went well. There was no rain at all, we finished our video shoot completely, with plenty of cutaways and re-shoots in case we needed them. Overall, I think we worked extremely well as a team. We took many pictures for proof of this, and we can use some of these pictures in our film magazines and horror film posters.

The editing begins...

So we thought we would start doing our editing properly on the Friday after our shoot. We wanted our film to be in the night as it's definitely a lot more scarier then; however that wasn't exactly possible. We thought it would be a much better idea if we filmed during the day, then simply edited our footage on the programming software by making it darker. This is so that we can see exactly what we were filming, and we're positive it would show up on camera. However, when we tried to edit the footage by making it darker, it was really a nightmare! In fact we're still trying to edit the footage to make it look like this was filmed in the night but we're not yet successful. We did cut a lot of the footage out though, which was unnecessary. Our movie has a very 'Blair Witch Project' feel to it... so it's interesting to see what we came out with.

Our First Filming Day

On Tuesday 1st December, we finally had our very first day of shooting for our horror teaser trailers. As you know, we had to cancel Sunday's video shoot due to the appalling weather... so we were already behind schedule as it was. Therefore, we had to work extra hard on Tuesday to get where we wanted! We got there about 9.30am. Our location was the woods in Spa Hill; where the setting was quite scary and perfect for our film. However... it was absolutely freezing! We were all nearly in tears due to this, and even the camera froze up because of the abysmal weather circumstances! But we couldn't complain; we simply had to get on with it. We stuck to our filming schedule quite well as we did all our shots in order. We took each shot quite a few times as well; so when we edit we can choose the best one. We also included quite a few cutaways as well, in case we need to add to some shots or make them look less awkward. Me being the director, had to constantly keep shouting 'Action!'... with my director's board. Our first location was fine to shoot at, but when we got deeper in to the woods, we incurred some problems. Firstly, it was a chore bringing all the equipment up the steep hill when we got further into the woods. Secondly, there were many stinging nettles which were getting in the way. Lastly, the deeper we went into the woods... the colder and colder it got! We did work well as a team though, and got the job done swiftly and quickly. We shot many takes of our shots to ensure we had enough and could have a variety to choose from. When we got deeper into the woods, we also discovered many odd bits of furniture. These were actually really scary... there was an old broken leather chair tilted to it's side, a bed with no mattress with the springs forced out, rope tied on to the trees, writing on the trees, an old broken radio, and many other scary objects. It actually added to the effect that we were trying to create, so we took shots of it on the video camera as well as the still camera! We also took many photos on our shoot, as proof that we visited the woods... these will soon be on my blog also! When we went back to college after all that filming, we went to view what we had filmed so far. It was really terrible news when we found out the camera had frozen up many times, and the settings had messed up due to the freezing cold weather. This gave a pixelated effect on the screen; which looked really unprofessional. We were so afraid we had to film the whole shoot all over again... it was a horrific moment!! However, we got Mr Varghese (our media class's technology teacher... adobe, video cameras, etc) to have a look at it for us. Even he was a bit apprehensive as to what had happened and was convinced we had to re-shoot. But in the end, he finally managed to fix it with his magical hands!! We were so happy we couldn't even explain it! We watched back our filming and were very proud of ourselves. Although it's not finished, I think us four (Me, Kinnerey, Sarah and Nahed) worked extremely well as a team and just got on with it!! We achieved a lot and I can't wait to film again on Sunday!!

Filming Schedule

Please click to view it bigger... thanks :)

Still unsure what to call our film...?

It really has been tough on deciding a decent name for our horror film. We want it to be something snappy so it's easily remembered, but for it to also sound like a genuine horror film. I randomly opened the dictionary and thesaurus at times and found some names that would be really good for horror films but it is still undecided.

We had these ideas:

-Interruption
-Disconnected
-Reconnected
-Remember Me
-Uncertain
-Disruption
-Target
-Fallacy
-Savage
-Depart
-Incoherent
-Disjointed
-Disordered
-Unstructured
-Unconnected
-Wander
-Hostility
-Hostile
-Cold Blooded
-Cold Blood
-Deficient
-Deficiency
-Defenseless
-Defective
-Outlier
-Anomaly

Filming Scedhule postponed... :(

We were supposed to be filming for our horror teaser trailer on Sunday 29th November... but unfortunately this didn't work out. The main obstacle in our way was the dodgy, unreliable weather. We were hoping for a bit of sunshine for our shoot, but the weather turned out to be disgusting and miserable with torrential rain. It wasn't even an issue of us ourselves getting wet, it was more-so to do with saving the camera equipment. We couldn't risk it getting completely ruined, even though we had umbrellas we still thought it would be a bad idea. Also... our second filming day is supposed to be on Tuesday 1st December, and the weather is supposed to be sunny on this day. Now, we can't have rain in our trailer, as well as sunshine if it's all supposed to be happening at the same time. It wouldn't seem right... so we decided to cancel our shoot on Sunday altogether, and are just going to have to work extra hard on Tuesday and hopefully next weekend!!

Production Name Change

We initially decided to call our production company 'Deathwish Productions'... However we had to change the name as our research lead to us finding out there is already a production company with this name. So our group has now decided to call our production name 'Hauntsville Productions'. We think this name would be sucessful :)

Location

- Woods (Everything will be shot here)

Group Roles

- Kinnerey- Camera woman
- Sarah- Editor
- Serina- Director
- Nahed- Producer

Cast

- Hanan (Little Alex)
- Matt (Big Lucas)
- Sarah (Big Alex)
- Serina (Friend no.1)
- Nahed (Friend no.2)

List of props used in horror teaser trailer

- A mask (plain white, will be painted and decorated)
- Plain black hoodies
- Black trousers
- Black t-shirt
- Black shoes
- Black shoes
- Alcohol bottles
- Doll